perfume, then it is not permissible, because it will adhere to him and its scent will remain.

This is conditional upon the oil with which he applies it having a perceptible fragrance.

It remains to consider that some soaps have a scent: is this perfume, or merely a pleasant smell? The apparent view is the latter. For this reason, people do not regard such soap as perfume. You do not find a man, when he wishes to perfume himself, bringing soap and rubbing it on his garment. Rather, because it is used on the hands to cleanse them of the smell of food, they add this pleasant scent to it. Thus, it appears to me that scented soap is not considered to be among the prohibited perfumes.

His statement, “or smells perfume,” means that he deliberately smells perfume; this is prohibited for him. However, the question of whether smelling perfume is prohibited requires further consideration, since smelling is not a form of using it.

For this reason, some scholars said that smelling it is not prohibited. Yet if he takes pleasure in it, he should avoid it for fear of falling into the prohibited matter associated with perfuming oneself. As for smelling it in order to test it—for example, to determine whether it is good, average, or poor—there is no harm in this.

This issue has three cases:

The first case: that he smells it unintentionally.

The second case: that he deliberately smells it, not to take pleasure or indulge in it, but in order to test whether it is good or poor.

The third case: that he intends to smell it in order to take pleasure in it. The view that it is prohibited